Allegations that all three of Garfield’s county commissioners went to an out-of-state meeting about oil shale without giving public notice of their gathering is disheartening.

A citizen’s group has alleged that commissioners violated Colorado’s open meetings law when they met March 27 in Utah with, among others, attorneys and lobbyists for oil shale interests.

The oil shale issue is a volatile one, and it would be in everyone’s best interest for elected public officials to not only honor the law, but when there’s a question about whether a meeting ought to be public they ought to err on the side of disclosure.

No doubt about it. Democrats have hit a series of home runs in recent weeks through a coordinated effort to paint all Republicans as a bunch of angry woman haters who want to keep us all barefoot and pregnant. While this is an effective tool to motivate base voters, it could just be what costs Democrats the November election.

If the GOP establishment is guilty of any gender-related atrocity, it’s that the party cannot move beyond its confused bewilderment with female voters. A gender-divide that gives Democrats a consistent boost among women voters befuddles insiders.

How could it be, they wonder, that free-thinking women could reject the politically correct and premature promotion of Sarah Palin and other women to the national stage? Most Republicans don’t take their gender card with them to the ballot box, having rejected the liberal orthodoxy that women can’t succeed without government babysitters. They’ve built careers proving gender stereotypes wrong and they resent any scent of affirmative action in candidate selection.

Then there are the horribly embarrassing recent moments like when a certain GOP U.S. Senate candidate from Missouri made outlandish and ignorant comments about rape and pregnancy. Every election exposes a handful of candidates espousing ridiculous, ignorant and bigoted views. The Democrats certainly gained some traction with that one.

Missouri’s misery fits in nicely with the larger Democratic plan to force so-called gender issues to the forefront of this year’s debate. Especially after a summer where Obama frequently paraded a squad of prominent female supports across Colorado. The idea: undecided women voters would jump onto the Obama bandwagon because some out-of-state beltway or Hollywood star insisted upon it. He had to do something after June polls showed a significant decline in female support of Obama from a 2008 peak.

Eva Longoria, star of ABC’s Desperate Housewife fame, arrived to Denver first, where her stunningly waifish fashionista self didn’t quite mesh with more “desperate” women continuing to struggle with America’s ongoing economic woes. Then she opened her mouth, insisting that no smart woman could possibly vote for the GOP only isolated voters on-the-fence. No, Eva. Smart women, regardless of partisan affiliation, don’t take their politics spoon-fed from a Hollywood star.

Next came Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student whose sudden fame has now surpassed 2008’s “Joe the Plumber”. Fluke’s message: without government-mandated birth control coverage, countless women will be forced into unintended pregnancies. Never mind that the last place women want the government is in their bedrooms, or that according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis, just 20 percent of Americans say they trust their government.

Then there was Lilly Ledbetter, poster child for the nation’s so-called gender wage gap epidemic, who came to Denver to preach that America cannot know pay parity absent government intervention. But rants about wage inequity simply don’t resonate today when men account for 75 percent of all job losses across the nation during the recession.

As Krista Kafer, director of Colorado’s Future Project, sees it, conversations about birth control, gay rights and wage parity may be important, but they are far down the list when it comes to the issues she cares about. “I think about bigger things,” she said. According to a new Bloomberg national poll, a full 77 percent of Americans believe birth control shouldn’t be part of the national political debate. Further, while Gallup reports that more than half of voters now view gay marriage as “morally acceptable,” Obama’s spring slide with women voters has been partially attributed to his public proclamation in support of gay unions.

“Equality of outcome isn’t an American virtue,” Debbie Brown, a Colorado mother and director of the right-leaning Colorado Women’s Alliance, recently told me. “We teach our girls in Colorado how to achieve their dreams through hard work, integrity and tenacity – not through legal games, quotas or victimhood. ”

This fall, both parties would be wise to heed the advice of Bill Clinton, whose 1992 presidential bid and subsequent victory hammered home one of the great political truths insiders too often forget. It’s about the economy, stupid. Smart women get it.

So according to the Secretary of State’s office, the 2012 personhood measure has failed to meet the viability (pun intended) threshold for the Colorado ballot. After two landslide defeats by Colorado voters, “no” finally means “no.”

But whether it’s on the Colorado ballot or not, local and national Republicans haven’t gotten that message and can’t run away from personhood. They own it. What began as a fringe issue in Colorado in 2008 is now part of the national Republican platform and has been co-sponsored in Congress by their vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan.

The issue may have diminished in Colorado but it has gained strength elsewhere with the Republican Party. And almost all of their Colorado candidates, including Reps. Mike Coffman and Cory Gardner, are on the record as supporting the 2008 and 2010 personhood measures and flip-flopping on this one. Republican candidates in Colorado and nationally have backed personhood to satisfy an extremist base that’s out of touch with moderate voters, especially suburban women. Read more…

The executive director of Spina Bifida Association of Colorado wrote me today to share the news that her group is offering a $500 reward for the return of a custom wheelchair stolen from a Highlands Ranch teen-ager.

Yesterday, I put up a piece on the Idea Log about the theft of Pierce Grandchamp’s $10,000 chair, wondering who could be so cold as to steal it.

Grandchamp, who has spina bifida, left the chair outside his father’s house so he could quickly drive his sister to their mom’s house, a short distance away. When he returned, less than 10 minutes later, the wheelchair was gone. Grandchamp, who is 18 years old, has had to resort to using an older chair from his childhood that is too small for him.

“I would like to believe it is just a misunderstanding. The thought that someone would deliberately steal a wheelchair is just too horrible to contemplate,” the Rev. John Anderson, Spina Bifida Association of Colorado (SBACO) board president, said in a news release. “SBACO wants to help Pierce get his chair back through this incentive. It is hard for most people to understand how important this piece of equipment is. Having these wheels gives Pierce the ability to go out and take care of everyday living. Without it, his mobility is strictly limited.”

The association is offering a $500 reward, no questions asked, with the condition that the chair be returned in good working order.

Come on, people. Someone out there knows something. Return the chair and give this young guy a piece of his life back.

OK, call me naïve, call me malleable, but I can’t help it. When all the presidential fanfare shows up, I get a patriotic tingle.

I was raised to respect the office of the president whether or not you agreed with his politics. And Tuesday in Fort Collins, with crowds lining up to show their support, helicopters circling overhead and Secret Service agents blocking the usual entrance to my office, I felt energized, not quite a foaming-at-the-mouth frenzy but certainly a little “fired up,” as President Obama put it.

And I don’t even know whom I am going to vote for. I guess that’s why he’s here and we should take advantage of this time. We’re like the bachelorette who has but one rose to give. Milk it, baby.

So, how does President Obama court 13,000 enthusiastic fans on the Montfort Quad?

He does it by making it about YOU. He empowers his audience in a brilliant way. What do college students want more than to feel like they matter? Like they’re important? Read more…

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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The idea log The Denver Post editorial board shares commentary and opinion on issues of interest to Coloradans.